(i) Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and a computer readable medium.
(ii) Related Art
Apparatuses such as a print controller, a print server, and a printer (hereinafter referred to as a “print controller or the like”), are provided with a processing module called a raster image processor (RIP), in order to be capable of interpreting print data that is transmitted from a client computer and that is described in a page description language (PDL) and generating raster image data. Hereinafter, a process of interpreting print data and generating a raster image (rasterization) executed by a RIP will be referred to as a RIP process.
A portable document format (PDF), which has been widely used in recent years, is a file format suitable for viewing data. PDF data may be directly input to a printer and printed out, and is thus regarded as a kind of PDL. In the related art, upon PDF data being input, a RIP for PostScript (registered trademark) language provided in a print controller or the like receives the PDF data, converts the PDF data into data of the PostScript language, and executes a RIP process on the converted data. Thus, it takes a longer time to execute a RIP process on PDF data than on PostScript data.
In recent years, a RIP for directly interpreting and rasterizing PDF data has been developed to process PDF data at a higher speed. Such a RIP has a function of receiving PostScript data, converting the PostScript data into PDF data, and executing a RIP process thereon. In such a RIP, it takes a longer time to execute a RIP process on PostScript data than on PDF data.
In order to process both PostScript data and PDF data at high speed, both a RIP for PostScript data and a RIP for PDF data may be mounted in a print controller or the like. However, a very large memory region is necessary for a RIP process, and thus the print controller or the like may be incapable of executing both RIP processes due to the limited capacity of a memory mounted therein.